Sonic Generations; Possibly the only Sonic game you'll ever need to play.

**The following post is a review I did on another blog I had that I have since shut down, which might explain to why it feels dated or different. I simply decided that it wasn't much worth throwing away.

Following the one thing those dudes from that one Game Review site we all love to hate had said (TL;DR version, IGN has a YouTube segment, a couple guys started talking about the 25th Anniversary party and the tease for Project 2017 and Mania, and then one of the blokes uttered, and this is not verbatim, "Sonic was never good.") I feel like I should probably bring up the one (of the few times, including Colors which IGN rated 8.5/10 so kinda dropped the ball there gents) that a Sonic game was just really, undeniably, unnervingly good.

So, in 2011 it was Sonic's 20th anniversary, and considering how his 15th Anniversary game went, you'd be justifiably skeptical about Sonic's future. At the time, the fantastic albeit just unfortunately Wii exclusive Sonic Colors had been released just one year before, and the surprisingly not terrible Sonic Unleashed (also known as King of the Framerate dips) had graced the world with their existence. The potential was there but would Sonic Team pull it off?

Yes.

In spectacular fashion. I cannot praise this game enough. It has rocketed me towards death more times than I can count, the final boss fight was subpar and underwhelming at best and honestly the game has the originality of a Twilight joke in 2016 (a little like this review actually). But to list all the great things about the game would take ages. But I think I'll talk about the game from a different perspective rather than the usual Gameplay/Graphics/Story/Soundscape format. It's boring, you can go find it anywhere and if you need a recommendation on whether or not to pick up the title I can simply give you a "fuck yes, be on your merry way and enjoy the adventure you little rascal."

But if you're still here with me, let me dive into the meat of it all here.

I wanna talk about Game Feel first. A kind of meh term to be honest but I can't really come up with a better one and far be it for me to try and sway the nomenclature of the world. But the question I want to ask is how exactly does it feel to play Sonic Generations?

Fantastically.

Let me first address the classic gameplay segments. There's a recurring problem I have with all the classic Sonic games, including the untouchable and ever fault-less Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It's the amount of weight Sonic had. I mean, he was a little tubbier back then but Imagine if you pressed on the accelerator of a car hard enough to feel the pedal touch the mat. Now imagine that whether or not that pedal was floored or only slightly touched, you'd still only accelerate at the same, painfully slow rate. That's what it felt like playing classic Sonic games. The issue is that Sonic felt like he never has any urgency, he starts at 0 and then slowly climbs his way to top speed, which is hella fast, don't get me wrong, but classic Sonic was always more about keeping momentum than quick reactions. In Generations however, this isn't the case. Sonic feels lighter, more carefree, and much faster. The camera is zoomed way out so you have plenty of room to see what's ahead. While it isn't perfectly up to scratch and you find yourself in Crisis City experiencing the worst of it due to this wind mechanic that honestly makes me see flames and curse the existence of Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 even more, but for the vast majority of the game, it feels fucking fantastic to zoom through stages, trying your hardest to get a good run and reacting as well as you can to the spikes and pits and enemies. In addition to remaking classic stages in a way that not only feels fresh but stylizing them to look absolutely gorgeous whilst allowing the player to witness the spectacle of it all, the modern stages are given the same treatment, putting them in 2.5D and Seaside Hill is the one that feels just the best. There's a point where you will end up on a certain lane if you lay a certain way but you can still see the other in the background and this kind of horizontality would have been impossible in the classic games, and the use of the z axis just goes such a long way into making the levels feel like a real place. Another fantastic improvement and I would be extremely poor to exclude is the choppers. In the original Green Hill Zone and in all subsequent games, the choppers are all dangerous hazards from the moment the appear on screen. However, in generations, they're safe for the first few frames where they jump up behind the bridge and only become a danger after reaching the fullcrum point of their jump and then dive down onto Sonic. It's small but it makes such a huge difference. Finding all five rings in Planet Wisp let's you unlock a homing attack for Classic Sonic but I never felt it was necessary. I never felt like at his most basic, he felt like he needed something more. And I think it goes to show how timeless the classic Sonic formula is.

And now that we've gotten the boring fluff out of the way, let's talk about the real star of the show. Modern Sonic. Sonic as he is today. One issue that I am so glad didn't carry over from Unleashed is the problem unleashed had with lanes. Quick stepping with Sonic in Generations is always perfect and I am baffled at just how tight the controls are every time I play. But onto the feel.

The game does so many things to get the feel of Sonic right it's just hard not to put the controller down, take a second to just marvel at what you just saw, pick the controller back up and jump in for more. Let's start with the boost mechanic. It's a simple matter of variable x + Sonic's current velocity. However, the sound effect, that satisfying little boom that plays along with the sound of the air gushing past your face and the ripple that flashes across the screen as it happens, the gorgeous effect around Sonic, and something people don't often notice but Sonic normally runs really loosely, with his hands trailing behind his body and his head kind of bobbing with each step. But when you boost, he clenches his fists and leans in just a bit and Sonic just looks like he's enjoying the act of raeching his top speed. I really have to commend the animators on their work here because it's just so freaking stellar. The transitions between 3D and 2.5D is also just so seamless and you begin to understand why Sonic Team took away manual camera control. And the spectacle? Man, it's just ramped up. Jumping away from the Mega Chopper trying to nom you as an afternoon snack is just one of my favourite moments in the game and  the best part is how you can perform tricks, practically taunting it as you get away. The game is a power fantasy combined with the experience of an adventure through this brightly coloured world.  It's wonderful. Unbelievably wonderful. Sonic's moveset is just a joy to work with, combining the stomp with the boost and air dash to perform complex and timing based manuevers to beat a record in the best time possible, that's where it's at. The grading system at the end also only encourages one thing; speed. Beat the level as fast as you can. It's not unbearably difficult to get an S-Rank and you'll find yourself playing the game over, and over, and over until you finally perfectly beat that one stage. I found myself, even after getting an S-Rank, clearing all the challenge missions and finding all the Red Medals just replaying Green Hill Zone act 2, to get the best time, learn the secrets of the stage, and just unwind at the end of a long day blasting through a fun stage that's so superbly designed that based on the minute and a half it takes to complete it alone, I'd give this game a perfect numeric score.

And you want to know what else provokes those positive emotions? A full orchestral soundtrack remaking classic chiptune songs into massively scaled musical pieces that just brings the game together so nicely.

It kind of shocks me how easily people forget this game when saying things like "Sonic was never good." I mean, the game's story is extremely simple and doesn't overstay it's welcome. The few times you sit through the cutscenes you'll find yourself marveling at just how well the engine runs them. They aren't prerenders, and I think that says the most about them. But Sonic Generations is not just a good Sonic game, it's just a great videogame. I can just recommend it to anyone. I can just smile and say, play this game. Just pick it up and see what it's about and give it a bit of love and Sonic Generations will love you back. It'll be your friend when you're down and your rival when you need to prove yourself. This game is a lot of things, In this world, there exists no such thing as perfection, but Sonic Generations comes so close I'm willing to give it a mulligan.